Day #940: Improve 1% Everyday

Habits don’t change in a day. But 1% a day makes every habit work. Every.

The reason is: they work if you do a little each day. If you relax and give yourself permission to only improve a little each day, then a good habit works.

It’s permission to improve. It’s also permission to fail. Because when you first start something, you’re on day one.If you want to succeed at anything, you have to give yourself permission to fail twice as much as you thought you would.

If you insist, I need to change RIGHT NOW, then it won’t work. You’ll only get worse.

If you insist the habit changes tomorrow, then the habit will certainly fail.

Commander Hadfield, the astronaut, improved his skills every day for 20 years before getting into space.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote every day for 25 years before he had a major bestseller.

Even Mozart, despite being a prodigy, wrote music for 10 years every day before becoming a true master.

Improve a little each day. It compounds. When 1% compounds every day, it doubles every 72 days, not every 100 days. Compounding tiny excellence is what creates big excellence.

You can’t be a master in one day. You have to improve a little every day.

Picasso created 2 works of art a day. That’s 50,000 in a lifetime. It adds up.